The Scarlet Letter Essay Research Paper Pearl — страница 2

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which belongs to Puritan life, the other being that of the wild “elf-child” of the forest. For her entire life she has been ostracized from Puritan society so she has no choice but to accept her “kindred wildness” that Nature accepts in her. This is the key to why Pearl is such an odd child and why she acts so differently because she knows not the ways of man and Puritan society. She was born an “outcast of the infantile world. An imp of evil, emblem and product of sin, she had no right among christened infants”(71). She takes on the characteristics of Nature because Nature accepts her as one of its own. Nature, “that wild, heathen Nature of the forest, never subjugated by human law, nor illumined by higher truth”(162), is what Pearl is an image of. Pearl’s

character “lacked reference, and adaptation to the world into which she was born. The child could not be made amenable to rules”(69). These two quotes show a striking resemblance in description. In both cases Nature and Pearl are referred to as not adapting to Puritan society and not following its ways. This is the characteristic that makes Pearl so different because she is unaffected by the ways of man, and is a product of Nature and its ways. If Pearl is a product of Nature, then her wildness is understandable for the wildness Pearl obtained from Nature is the very thing that causes alarm to all. Pearl is so wild and lawless as a child because she is a product of the wild and lawless force of Nature. Pearl has a very unique situation that throws her out of Puritan society

and into the open arms of Nature. Through this situation Nature helps Pearl to look into herself and allow the “kindred wildness” in her to dominate her actions. She is compared to a “creature that had nothing in common with a bygone and buried generation, nor owned herself akin to it.” Because of this little girl’s banishment from Puritan society she was thrown to another way of life and her wildness and peculiarity is a direct product of her banishment. Bibliography The Scarlet Letter-Nethanial Hawthorn 32b